Sky Guide 2012

Astronomical Handbook for Southern Africa

Sky Guide Africa South is an invaluable practical resource for anyone who has even a passing interest in the night skies of southern Africa.
Prepared by the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa as a reference work for the novice, amateur and professional astronomer,it presents a wealth of information about the Sun, Moon, planets, comets, meteors and bright stars in a clear and accessible way, accompanied by a number of diagrams to support the text.
Here you will find 116 pages of information specifically for the year 2012 about the movement of the planets, about the occurrences of eclipses, the appearances of comets, the dates of meteor showers as well as clearly presented star charts to aid in identifying bright stars and constellations in the night skies of southern Africa.
The SkyGuide continues the tradition of the well-established Astronomical Handbook for Southern Africa. This is its 64th year of publication.

What's inside?

The Guide is divided into a number of sections most of which will be familiar to users of other handbooks. Each section is identified by a symbol.
The first section is the monthly sky diary, giving a summary of events for each month, such as phenomena relating to the Sun, Moon, planets, comets and meteor showers.
Predictions for rise and set times of the Sun and Moon are given for five centres: Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Johannesburg, Durban and Harare. The "deep-time" graph, showing Moonless nights, is an easy-to-use aid in planning your observing sessions.
The apparent positions of the naked-eye planets at regular intervals throughout the month are tabulated. The orbits of the readily observable moons of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are illustrated. Times when Venus is near the Moon during the day, and may therefore be seen with the naked eye, are listed. Dates when Jupiter's moon, Callisto, is at maximum separation from the planet are given.
Easy-to-use sky maps illustrate interesting events each month. The dates and days of the week are displayed along the top of the page, along with a base Julian Date number, to which the day of the month can be added to obtain the actual Julian Date. The monthly sky diary pages can be used as hand-outs for public outreach activities, or placed on classroom and education centre notice boards.